MakanMakan - the Asian food village

It took a while, but we are back into the food tasting and restaurant testing business! Double M and me were busy settling down in a significant Tower in the Ermita quarter of manila. We must have a good outlook of our surroundings since we plan to visit all restaurants, foodstalls and bistro's within our view, so there is no time to lose!

Now you can make a cross bearing and plot where our headquarters are, so if you are around, let us know and maybe we can share a good meal somewhere in the neighborhood. Our first dining out depended fully on the weather. It is rain season and with the grey skies always ready to shower you, we took the risk and moved out far (without umbrellas!), crossed Roxas Blv. and hit for the H20 hotel, an unknown location for us.

We found out that it is still partly under construction and in between the welding, cutting and building sites, something pretty interesting is arising. The hotel is build on former sea and so the themes of some shows and events are centered around  marine life and aquariums. But we save that for another time, as hungry we were, we headed straight of to Maknmakan - the Asian food village.

We started with a dimsum platter, to silence our grunting stomachs; the dimsums were crispy, nicely textured and tasteful even without the chili and soy sauses. A good start asking for more. About the ambience; the kitchens are open and in the middle of the hall, with the tables scattered around, indeed giving the impression you are in a village. Every station has its speciality and the menu reads Chinese, Filipino, Thai, Malay and Singapore kitchen. Time to flush a local San Miguel beer and get ready for the main.

Good, I have the biggest space available and was most hungry, so decided to go for a Noodle Soup Asado and a green Thai curry, while MM ordered a humble Singapore beef noodles. Then, impatient as I was, I attacked right away after the waiter served the soup, a strong and salty broth with something floating around in it which I took for asado (whatever that was supposed to be; sometimes I surprise myself...).Superb! Though not mine at all. I was quickly sipping away Double M's part of his noodles dish. I realized that once a rather big bowl of soup with sweet pork meat was served out, together with my green curry and rice. All together too much (the soup), too hot (the curry), but very good.

It was Double M who was a bit dissapointed with his Singapore noodles. Being a true carnivore; the meat was hard to find (not in the broth and too less under the noodles), so luckily I got some help in emptying the dishes at my side of the table.

So that was where it ended - no need for a dessert this time and when leaving the food village we decided to come back later and try some more of the extended and divers menu. It need to be said that the food village delivers a great quality for a very affordable price and the portions are generous.

Epilogue:
On our way back we bought some luxury sweets for Double B, the little nephew of Double M, and since we missed our dessert, we decided back in the Tower to try some of them with a coffee. Unfortunately little Double B will never see his sweets... and in the meantime we bought some ordinairy buttercookies as replacement. Luckily, Little Double B is still too young to read this: and the sweets were absolutely great!